New York Investigates Whether Boy Scouts’ Employment Practices Discriminated Against Gays

[AZMike 173]

File under "You Will Be Made To Care."

 

The New York State attorney general’s office has opened an inquiry into the Boy Scouts of America’s hiring practices to determine whether the group has discriminated as an employer against gays.

 

The office will ask Wayne Brock, the chief scout executive of the Boy Scouts’ national organization, for detailed information on the group’s involvement in hiring decisions there and at its local councils. The request comes three weeks after the Boy Scouts’ New York City affiliate said it had hired a gay Eagle Scout to work in a scout camp this summer.

 

The New York group, the Boy Scouts’ Greater New York Councils, said it had hired Pascal Tessier, an 18-year-old Eagle Scout who grew up in Kensington, Md., and is a student at the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio. Over the last couple of years, he has become a prominent figure in the debate about gays in scouting.

 

Ms. Clarke noted in the letter, which was obtained by The New York Times, that state law prohibits an employer from refusing to hire a person based on sexual orientation and also forbids discrimination on the job. “Entities that operate in or are registered to do business in the State of New York must comply with these anti-discrimination requirements,†she said in the letter.

 

[...]

 

She asked Mr. Brock for information about the national organization’s role in, and its ability to control, hiring decisions made by the local councils.

 

The letter did not indicate how the attorney general’s office might seek to enforce the Human Rights Law against the Boy Scouts, but it did make note that the group derives “significant income from both merchandise sales at its Scout Shops, as well as through the operation of its 16 local councils in the state.â€

 

Read More Here: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/21/nyregion/new-york-investigates-whether-boy-scouts-employment-practices-discriminated-against-gays.html?_r=0

[RememberSchiff 3687]

IMO, I think this inquiry into employment discrimination will quickly and quietly end any requirement that employees be members of the BSA.

[moosetracker 132]

Interesting, I was expecting National to apply pressure on the Council until they removed him. I remember some article a few years back of a camp councilor with a similar background of having grown up in BS, and having worked at the camp for years.. I don't remember if he had just come out, or if National had just got wind of it or what, but the council was pressured until they removed him..  I don't think with NY investigating them, they will do the same thing in this case though.